Name the Exit

There is a decision you have not made yet. You have not been ignoring it — you have been rehearsing it, or running the numbers on it, or tidying something adjacent to it.

That is not procrastination. That is attention leaving, and it leaves in a particular direction.

Five named patterns are below, each with one twenty-second move back. The way back is specific to the exit, which is why naming it matters more than calming down.

Rehearsal Nexting

What it feels like from inside. Practicing what you'll say. The conversation gets held four times in your head.

The way back — twenty seconds. Say the first sentence out loud, once. Then stop. The rest is rehearsal.

Doom Math

What it feels like from inside. Predicting the worst. Every branch mapped, none of it terminating.

The way back — twenty seconds. Name the threshold. "If X, then Y." One line. If you can't write it, you're not assessing — you're circling.

Fix-It Sprint

What it feels like from inside. Solving everything immediately. Everything adjacent gets handled; the decision doesn't.

The way back — twenty seconds. Put your hands down. Ask what the actual decision needs. Do that instead.

Self-Trial

What it feels like from inside. Reviewing your mistakes like a courtroom. Prosecuting the last one instead of making this one.

The way back — twenty seconds. Ask: is this decision, or the last one? Answer out loud, then return to this one.

Scroll Numb

What it feels like from inside. Leaving the moment quietly. Nothing dramatic, and the time is gone.

The way back — twenty seconds. Stand up. Two breaths. Say the decision's name. Sit back down.

How to use these

Catch yourself once this week. The tell is usually repetition — the third pass through the same scenario.

Name which way you went. Out loud, if you're alone.

Then ask what the decision actually needs next: one thing, small enough to do today.

This is orienting, not calming. You can't come back through a door you can't find.

Which exit is yours, in the hour before a hard call?

Five named patterns — something you test against your own week, not a test you pass. This is not a measure, a type system, or an assessment, and it has not been validated as one.

These five are not a replacement for the research on decision avoidance — they are the view from inside it. Christopher Anderson's 2003 review in Psychological Bulletin catalogues four forms of avoidance from the outside: what a person did. These five name what it felt like while they were doing it, which is the only vantage from which you can catch yourself in one.